PBL Print has elevated short-run landscape book production capacity and versatility with investment in a Horizon SPF-200L bookletmaker from Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS).

The Chester-le-Street operation runs two Heidelberg XL 75 five colour presses, two Heidelberg Versafire digital colour presses, and Ricoh and Konica Minolta mono presses. Its core business is the provision of quality, cost-effective solutions for the public sector.

Eric Stevenson, Managing Director, explains the investment: “The industry is generally heading towards smaller orders and the new landscape bookletmaker will help manage those more effectively and efficiently.

“We were completing A4 landscape jobs on a system more suited to longer runs but we wanted to be able to offer greater flexibility in terms of run lengths. The Horizon system is better suited to smaller quantities.”

He continues: “We didn’t look at any other suppliers because we have quite a lot of Horizon systems. Our team are used to operating them. They have the same easy set up so running a new addition did not require much training at all.”

The 4,500bph Horizon SPF-200L landscape feed bookletmaker combines stitching and folding with the ability to handle sheets up to 640mm in length. JDF-ready, it offers instant set-ups via a large icon-based colour touchscreen for user-friendly operation. The screen can be used for on-the-run fine tune adjustments as well as the storage and recall of up to 200 jobs.

Eric concludes: “It is running really well and doing exactly what we thought it would do. We chose it to help with growth and we know it will help us achieve that.”

The Horizon SPF-200L landscape feed bookletmaker joins a BQ-470 EVA four clamp perfect binder, a StitchLiner 6000 book production line and a SPF-200A bookletmaker.